Whacker's competition footage

December 12 2009

Grapplemania @ Henderson, NC

So this was my first meet ever, have been training for a hair under 3 months. I entered 4 divisions; Men's 30+ beginner gi and no gi, Men's novice gi and no gi. I took 1st in men's novice no gi (WOW, never would have guessed that), 3rd in men's 30+ beginner gi and no gi, and didn't place in the men's novice gi. I weighed in the night before at 187 lbs, so 180-189.9 weight class. They combined classes a few times to ensure there were enough people to compete against.

1. I knew this to begin with, experience confirmed it. My guard 'game' is absolutely. Miserable. I get raped repeatedly when in people's guard. Several folks have been trying to help me with this thus far. This is absolutely going to be my next big project and area of focus, just because I suck so bad at it. Am considering a private lesson or two with Billy or Jas on this subject, if I can afford it.

2. Drew mentioned that he wants/thinks I can compete at 160. I think this is doable, I still am shedding weight slowly. Next big thing is a diet change, so will see how that goes. If that works well I will try to increase my daily cardio even more and try to build more endurance.

3. Apparently rolling 9 times at a comp is a lot, in talking to multiple people. My last two matches I was beyond gassed. In the future, depending on the size of the meet, I may enter less divisions. As my cardio improves I may do more again. Who knows.

4. Finally found something I am starting to enjoy doing more so than other things, and that is taking people's backs. When I started the jits I was largely indifferent to it, because the lower belts I was rolling with didn't take mine very often and usually couldn't hang on, so I didn't really feel any fear of it. Eventually rolling with higher belts who could take it, keep it, AND choke me from here made me start to realize how bad that was. Couple this with the fact that I was also very, very bad at taking backs and staying there, lead me to largely shelve this aspect until fairly recently. Talking with Kintanon, watching some instructional vids, and pressure testing some things during rolling helped me figure out a few things, and I suddenly started to get much better at this. My best match all event was my first novice gi match, I ended up taking the guy's back and held it for a solid 2-3 minutes, with a good single cross choke applied (I could hear his breathing get much more ragged) but wasn't able to finish due to time. Have had some good luck rolling with this the last few weeks as well. In short, this is a long term goal for me, obviously I am very new, still suck, and need to focus on the basics, but I would eventually like to get very good at taking people's backs and staying there. The Marcelo Garcia vs. Renzo Gracie vid floating around Youtube is a hell of an inspiration.

I found my guard passing game improved when I started to keep my hips loaded (pressure forward while tilting pelvis to round out my back) and then keeping constant pressure on their legs such that, when they break their guard, the pressure keeps the legs open. From there, immediately transition to combat base.

That is incredibly hard to do though if they have your posture broken down. Posture is key here. Get their hands off your head, move to safety position (head on their belly, hands in their arm pits), and then regain posture. Keep pressure on their hips and legs.

Your cardio held up well for such a high number of matches! I've done a maximum of 4 matches in a single tournament and that is exhausting enough rolling with the big boys.

Ended up taking 2nd in nogi novice through a forfeit so I didn't earn that **** at all, and 2nd in 30+ white belt gi.

My first match, dude took me down, landed in my guard, and that was the entire 5 minutes. He couldn't pass, and I didn't submit him.

Second match I took dude down, he ended up rolling me in half guard. We both stood back up, he shot with about 5 seconds to go and I had a textbook sprawl that stopped him cold, shot right around his side and was on his back for about 1 second when they called time. Ref gave him the match because he shot at the end. I wasn't pleased, because I felt I was more aggressive and controlled the action during that match, but oh well.

Third match I was up against a friggin' 6' 6" dude who almost triangled me twice. Both attempts failed, I passed his guard both times but couldn't damn well hold it 3 seconds so I didn't get points. Could have won if I would have pulled those off.

Fourth time I got a bit gunshy on standup, and dude ended up pulling me right into an armbar. It was clean, I tried to fight for a sec and he clamped down, I tapped.

Fifth match was my redemption, I triangled the guy in about 30 seconds, it was solid too. One thing I did do that pissed me off was I froze when he actually tapped, because I think it honestly stunned me since I *never* get submissions. He tapped again and I think my brain finally caught up and I let go immediately, he was almost out. I apologized several times for that, dude wasn't mad at all, actually he was semi-amused, but I wasn't pleased with myself.

Sixth one I felt a bit robbed but got over that self pity quickly because it's no one's fault but my own. Dude shot, he missed but I lost balance trying to recover, he ended up in my guard and again that's where we stayed the whole match. I kept trying to choke him to no avail, and he stalled like crazy. No attempts to pass at all. Ref gave us both a warning for stalling, when I was clearly trying like hell to move his arms and choke, so that pissed me off a bit. I ended up getting a semi-solid kimura on his left (my right) side arm, and was working on pulling it out, but I had absolutely zero strength left at that point, my arms were shot. I kept pulling with my arms and body but he had a deathgrip on his gi pant leg and I couldn't get it out. I looked up right as they threw in the beanie. Lost, 2 - 0.

I haven't talked to my coaches yet, but I took a few things away from this and without having any feedback, these are my thoughts as of now.

First and foremost, I think I'm entirely too much a defensive player right now. I generally always end up on the bottom when rolling, and my defensive ability shows. Most folks except for the experienced blues generally don't tap me during class, and I tend to get comments more often than naught that my "defense is sick". Positive feedback helps, but I think my offense is lagging behind where it should be. Need to start attacking more, looking for sweeps, looking for subs.

Second, I am getting the impression that I need to work a bit on strength training. I've purposefully avoided anything like this because I do NOT want to get strong and end up relying on muscle instead of proper technique. That said, both meets I've been to, combined with normal day-to-day rolling in class is leading me to believe that I'm probably weaker for my size than I should be. Especially today, I was having a hell of a time moving my opponent's limbs around, half the time I couldn't budge anything, whereas I felt that in several instances I was getting shoved around like there was no tomorrow, and it wasn't due to better technique. The two matches that really stand out to me where the one I lost 5 - 2 against tall dude, and the very last one where I almost had the kimura. The 5-2 match was the one where I really felt like my arms where getting tossed all over the damn place while I was in his guard, and he was simply overpowering me. Guy wasn't built like a brick either, he was kinda skinny but not overly so. Still, he was overpowering me rather handily. Last match, I HAD that goddamn kimura. Even though my strength was shot by that point, I still debate if I would have had the strength to jerk his arm out if I had some energy left. Probably not, and I think I should have, given the situation.

Third, I'm still fighting two deeply ingrained personality traits. I don't like to take chances or gamble, and generally only take action if I'm relatively sure of success. I'm starting to see what I perceive are more opportunities when rolling, both at these meets and day to day and I don't capitalize on them, or even take a chance. Think I just need to bite the bullet and start trying more stuff. The other thing is my near instinctive reaction to any difficult or adverse situation is to simply say "Stop. Let's look at this, figure it out, figure out some courses of action, the pick the best one." This obviously doesn't work at all during an active adversarial situation like rolling, and it's been hell to adapt. I can see the importance of muscle memory and correctness of technique, but I still know and can feel myself hesitate all the time in situations when I shoulda just... y'know, DONE something. Oh well. I think that is something I've been fighting, am still fighting, and will have to continue to fight, as that is the way I grew up dealing with situations.

Anyway, sorry for lack of videos, know it's hard to comment without them. Hopefully dad is going to come with me to NAGA in Charlotte on May 8th and will get some footage there.